Proving the unprovable for fun and profit.
By Bill Scott, founder of StoreReport LLC & Scott Systems Inc.
I am neither an astronomer nor an astrophysicist. I don’t care if Pluto is a planet, a fly spec on the lens of a telescope or a famous cartoon character. It makes no difference if creation began as a ‘big bang’, ‘a brief period of inflation’ or a popular TV show. However, it appears to me that scientists who have made their living looking at pictures of the visible universe have dedicated their entire lives to proving all sorts of unprovable hypotheses, and I find this rather odd. Nevertheless, I have found a correlation between their study of the universe and the study of life here on Earth, especially the study of the growth and fate of a business, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
What it all boils down to is this: money (or some other form of remuneration) is the only controllable substance we cannot live without. Oh it’s grand to have ideas, and it’s alright to claim that some causes trump all; but without somebody else’s money, noble causes would end up on the junk heap of noble failures. Even the Saints had to eat.
All the easy ones are taken
Proving or disproving a scientific idea can take decades. Discovering that falling apples tend to go toward the center of the Earth, and why it’s a bad idea to put one’s head into a lion’s mouth are yesterday’s revelations.
Scientists operate in groups, and collaboration within these groups is a major reason for their successes. Scientists envision a goal, and begin by working backwards to construct a map to reach it.
The assumption is the goal
If one doesn’t buy into the assumption, they are not welcomed into the group. Individuals within scientific groups are governed by a chalk board filled with equations. Changes in the equations that will alter the predefined assumption are not allowed unless the group agrees to modify the goal.
How do commercial businesses differ?
Most business leaders operate in groups as well. Business people envision an end result and work forwards to reach their goal. A business equation consists of objectives and milestones (among other things), written down on paper, or documented in a Business Plan. Changes are encountered, not on a blackboard, but in real life, where actions and events are often ignored or misunderstood, creating a pathway to an ambiguous goal.
Business equations begin as a collection of assumptions
- The world needs a widget
- The need for widgets is growing at the rate of…
- We have only two competitors, they are…
- We can do better by…
- We can easily capture the widget market
- We can produce widgets for X percent of the market price
- We can get our widgets into Big Box retailers
- We can secure operating capital in the amount of…
- We can sell our widget company in five years for X times the investment
Unlike mathematical equations, business equations are easily flawed, because assumptions between participants vary. Assumptions can go from minor misunderstandings to outright wars within the halls of a company. These varying assumptions affect objectives, understanding of outside influences, problems, strategies, planning, analysis, processes, contingencies and critical success factors. The goal becomes a moving target, and soon participants are compelled to blaze their own trails.
The question
What are your objectives in reaching a specific goal, the problems you have to overcome, the assumptions you believe to be true, the strategies you will use, the planning stages, how you will perform your analyses, the creation and execution of the processes, built-in contingencies, and things that absolutely must occur in order to reach a particular goal? The success of a company is not so much doing things right, as it is doing the right things.
Constant and frequent validation of assumptions held by a group is critical to reaching a goal
As I work with new businesses to help them realize their goals, I am appalled by the differences in assumptions. A metaphor that comes to mind is a bunch of people in a boat, with everybody rowing in a different direction. What shore you manage to reach is determined by the strongest rowers, but likely not where you set out to go. Success is carefully picking a target and being sure everybody knows where they are supposed to be rowing. Small distractions can become infectious and throw the entire team off target. Better still, give them a compass before they get in the water.
In weekly meetings, the first subject on the agenda should be a discussion of the assumptions. Without unanimous agreement on the assumptions, a business venture is always in jeopardy of being a failure.
